Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton | Page 9

mercies of a sacrilegious world. He fled to
the hermitage of Albuquerque, and there devotees visited him. Widows
and full-blooded donnas especially frequented his cell; and the results
of his exercises were such that the Alcalde threatened to lay hands upon
him. Once more he disappeared, but only to turn up again in the guise
of Don Sebastian. Two of his accomplices who mixed among the

people pointed out his resemblance to the lost monarch: the credulous
crowd swallowed the story, and he soon had a respectable following.
Orders from Lisbon, however, checked his prosperous career. He was
arrested and escorted by 100 horsemen to the dungeons of the capital.
There he was tried and condemned to death. The sentence was not,
however, carried into effect; for the imposture was deemed too
transparent to merit the infliction of the extreme penalty. The prisoner
was carried to the galleys instead of the scaffold, and exhibited to
visitors as a contemptible curiosity rather than as a dangerous criminal.
So ended the first sham Sebastian.
In the same year another pretender appeared. This was Alvarez, the son
of a stone-cutter, and a native of the Azores. So far from originating the
imposture, it seems to have been thrust upon him. Like the youth of
Alcazova, after being a monk, he had become a hermit, and thousands
of the devout performed pilgrimages to his cell, which was situated on
the sea-coast, about two miles from Ericeira. The frequency and
severity of his penances gained him great celebrity, and at last it began
to be rumoured abroad that the recluse was King Sebastian, who, by
mortifying his own flesh, was atoning for the calamity he had brought
upon his kingdom. At first he repudiated all claim to such distinction;
but after a time his ambition seems to have been aroused; he ceased to
protest against the homage of the ignorant, and consented to be treated
as a king. Having made up his mind to the imposture, Alvares resolved
to carry it out boldly. He appointed officers of his household, and
despatched letters, sealed with the royal arms, throughout the kingdom,
commanding his subjects to rally round his standard and aid him in
restoring peace and prosperity to Portugal. The local peasantry, in
answer to the summons, hastened to place themselves at his service,
and were honoured by being allowed to kiss his royal hand. Cardinal
Henrique, the regent, being informed of his proceedings, despatched an
officer with a small force to arrest this new disturber of the public
tranquillity; but on the approach of the troops Alvares and his followers
took to the mountains. The cardinal's representative, unable to pursue
them into their inaccessible fastnesses, left the alcalde of Torres Vedras
at Ericeira with instructions to capture the impostor dead or alive, and
himself set out for Lisbon. He had scarcely reached the plain when

Alvares, at the head of 700 men, swooped down upon the town and
took the alcalde and his soldiers prisoners. He next wrote to the
cardinal regent, ordering him to quit the palace and the kingdom. He
then set out for Torres Vedras, intending to release the criminals
confined there, and with their assistance to seize Cintra, and afterwards
to attack the capital. On the march he threw the unfortunate alcalde and
the notary of Torres Vedras, who had been captured at the same time,
over a high cliff into the sea, and executed another government official
who had the misfortune to fall into his clutches. The corregedor
Fonseca, who was not far off, hearing of these excesses, immediately
started at the head of eighty horsemen to oppose the rebel progress.
Wisely calculating that if he appeared with a larger force Alvares
would again flee to the hills, he ordered some companies to repair in
silence to a village in the rear, and aid him in case of need. He first
encountered a picked band of 200 rebels, whom he easily routed; and
then, being joined by his reinforcements, fell upon the main body,
which his also dispersed. Alvares succeeded in escaping for a time, but
at last he was taken and brought to Lisbon. Here, after being exposed to
public infamy, he was hanged amid the jeers of the populace.
Nine years later, in 1594, another impostor appeared, this time in Spain,
under the very eyes of King Philip, who had seized the Portuguese
sovereignty. Again an ecclesiastic figured in the plot; but on this
occasion he concealed himself behind the scenes, and pulled the strings
which set the puppet-king in motion. Miguel dos Santos, an
Augustinian monk, who had been chaplain to Sebastian, after his
disappearance espoused the cause of Don Antonio, and conceived the
scheme of placing his new patron on the Lusitanian throne, by exciting
a revolution in